A Passage to Ceylon

This story is taken from an interview with George and Peggy Lapsley, and has been added to the site with their permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interviewer was David Reid, and the transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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I once received leave. I was back now on Ceylon, which is now called Sri Lanka. And I was given leave, and this leave camp was near Utacommund, which is in the Nilgari hills where the posh people go in the hot season. I had never experienced this before or since, but we went to Kochin, which is full of disease and malaria. We got into a train. This train has 2 tracks and a cog track in the middle. Because it’s got to go 12k ft up. And it goes up, and you would go in. It’s a frightening, frightening experience. You went into the station and stopped, it’s slightly flattened it out. When the train started again it would go backwards slightly before the cogs caught. And when you were going up you’d have nothing on but a pair of shorts. Then you’d put a shirt on. Then you’d take the shorts off and put longs on. They you’d put a pullover on. By the time you got to the top you were dressed in summer European wear. It’s quite a few miles, it’s 12k ft so it takes quite a time.

On the way there, we went by this train which had no doors, no windows. There was more people on the roof of the train than there was in it, because they couldn’t afford it. And we went on the journey and we came to a place named Trinchinopoly. Now, one of the most exciting times of my life was the fact that on that route, at the same time, was traveling Mahatma Gandhi. He was slightly behind us. When we got to Trinchinopoly, we had great trouble getting out of the train because the whole platform was covered with the bodies of the faithful, waiting to greet the great Mahatma Gandhi. And when we left we had to tread our way very carefully because they didn’t move for you, to get some food because there were no restaurant cars on that train with no doors or windows. And when we got back they had written on it “British pigs go home”. And I wrote on the bottom of it, with my finger in the dust, “Please, I’m Irish!”

And that Mahatma Gandhi was a very famous person and he was going along the same track as I was.

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